WALES coach Steve Hansen has called on his players to lift themselves again after producing an inspired performance before going down to New Zealand in their final pool match.

Hansen's men led the match in Sydney for 16 minutes and only began to fade in the final quarter of an hour, but he said the challenge now was to repeat the effort in the quarter-final against England on Sunday.

"The big thing for us is to back it up and do it again next week against England," said Hansen.

"It's really important we recover really well and go to Brisbane and produce another performance like that one," he said, while captain Colin Charvis wanted the team to develop further.

"This being our fourth game we feel we have taken a few rungs up the ladder and what we've got to do now is go back to the training paddock tomorrow and try to improve again," said Charvis.

"We've got to try to compete against England, so I'm sure we're going to have to take another two steps up that ladder."

Many had predicted before the game that Wales would get a sound thrashing at the hands of the All Blacks, who came into the match after imperious wins over Italy, Canada and Tonga.

But Hansen had taken many lessons from June's heavy defeat by New Zealand in Hamilton, and he knew what to expect and how he wanted his players to deal with it.

"One of the big things we learned was that we didn't have the power to compete against teams like the All Blacks, so we went away and worked very hard on it," said Hansen.

"The unfortunate thing is that the All Blacks have been working on that for the last seven years and we've only been working on it for the last three months.

"At times tonight the All Blacks played very well, but so did we and we've closed the gap a little bit.

"We're not where we want to be yet but we're happy with the performance.

"We didn't get a good start but showed a lot of spirit to come back. We ran out of petrol because we're not playing at that intensity week in week out."

All Blacks coach John Mitchell was just pleased his players had finally been given a true test of their abilities after cruising through the opening three matches.

Racking up scores of 70-7, 68-6 and 91-7 was rewarding for players' career statistics but it did little to prepare them for the inevitable physical battering they face in the knock-out phase.

"Tonight we were in a contest and we had to work very hard to get on top of it," said Mitchell.

"We've been in need of a Test match like that in this tournament for some time. We can only benefit from that experience.

"Some of the things I read in the media this week were a bit disrespectful of their abilities. They played very well and we had to work very hard to produce the win.

"It's ideal that it comes this week as we are going into the knock-out phases next week."

Captain Reuben Thorne echoed his coach's satisfaction that the most difficult test of the tournament so far had been overcome in a timely fashion.

"They attacked us, particularly at the breakdown, and it's ideal really. We haven't been tested that much so far and tonight was a real test," said Thorne.

"It was a real battle and that's what we wanted going into the quarter-finals. Now we can look forward to South Africa.

"We never really contemplated losing the game. We just had to keep working hard and play the game down the right end of the field," he said.

"We were always confident we could get on top of them."

Mitchell also tipped Wales to give England a scare when the two sides meet in their quarter-final in Brisbane.

"This Test match isn't at Twickenham and Wales can take a lot from tonight's performance."